Banned Booksellers Week has begun with a bang. David Streitfeld's piece in the New York Times has kicked off what some hope will be a defining moment in the history of online bookselling. For the week of November 5 to 11, 2018, booksellers around the world will remove their inventory from Abebooks, an Amazon company, in a show of support for their brethren in South Korea, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia who were told they can no longer sell on their platform. Many were angered at the flippant response provided by Abebooks as to why the booksellers were removed claiming...
Pinterest meets Amazon at Scroll.Am
Scroll.Am homepageImagine taking a Pinterest-style scroll through the Amazon product database.Scroll.Am, was developed by Amsterdam-based designer and med student Jonathan Bouman. Bouman, who derives his motivation from his love of mashups, scrolling and Amazon, built a similar site last year which provided a nifty way to scroll Reddit.Every product leads with a visual and all the data and sharing opportunities you need is just a mouse-over away. Books category home page Clearly applicable to non-new books as well. With a little tweaking you could see it as a formidable online-catalog format for booksellers. The idea of wrapping the image with the necessary related content and delivering...
Amazon by the Numbers
At 80 million monthly visitors one "could fill 60 Disneylands." Just imagine if just half of those visitors went to an independent bookshop, either online or in store, and god knows what the trade can do with half of the $9 billion in book sales. They're not kidding when they pronounce Amazon the "undisputed giant of online retail," but of course, as we all now, bigger does not automatically equal better... via Mashable
April 3rd, 1995. Amazon sells its first book
April 3rd, 1995. A day that will live on for a long, long time, for it marks the beginning of the end of bookselling and publishing as we know it.It was on this day the first book was bought from Amazon by a customer.The book was Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas HofstaderIt was purchased by a John Wainwright who worked for a technology company in the Bay Area.The purchase did not go unnoticed, for Amazon has named one of the buildings on their new Seattle campus, The Wainwright!More at Quora:Amazon Company History: What was the first book ever...
An early look at Amazon
How about this screenshot of a very early homepage at Amazon.com.I wonder what happened to "Eyes" their "tireless, automated search agent"Amazing stuff.via buzzfeed